SCIENCE IN PRACTICE.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LIII, Issue 59, 18 June 1910, Page 12

SCIENCE IN PRACTICE.

OLD NEWSPAPERS. Many attempts have been made to use old newspapers and other printed sheets in the manufacture of white pa.per, but the removal of the printers' ink his hitherto presente' an insuperable difficulty. In a process patented in Germany, the paper pulp is treated with alkahnr solutions of peroxides of the met?;- of the a'lkalith and alkaline earths, which so alter the greasy part of the ink that it ceases to bind the lampblack and other pigments, which are then easily separated from the fibre by emulsifying the 'pulp with gelantinous silica. ELECTRICITY AND MOSES.

It is generally agreed that the aueient | Egyptians had* some knowledge of electricity, but that the Israelites had any such knowledge has never been put forward as yet. An engineer of Munich ha 9 now "delivered « paper, the object of which is to prove that the Israelites were electricians. Or, at least, if the Israelites were not, Moses was. The Munich engineer considers that the Brazen Serpent that Moses set up was nothing else than a lightning conductor, and that the serpents against which it guarded the children of Israel was the lightning itself. But his most curious .speculations are those on the Ark of the Covenant, and of the terrible death which menaced many sacrilegious persons who ventured to touch it. He affirms that the. Ark with its metal plates ■.was in reality a jar changed with ele'tcrieity, and that- its discharge was powerful enough to kill a man. Only the initiated could approach it with impunity, and that impunity was obtained bv the metallic robes of the priests, which reached to the ground, and carried off the discharge of electricty. The engineer quotes many passages from the Old Testament in support of his theory, and it is quite possible that Moses, who had learnt much of the magic of the Egyptians, had acquired a knowledge of electricity, while in later years was forgotten by the successors of Aaron. PUBLIC AIR BATHS.

On the recommendation of several medical men in Vienna the municipality has opened an institution called by the popular name of "GJauschaufel." It is simply an open-air sanitorium for healthy persons, An immense area covered with fine sand deposited from the Danube, which used to flow there in ancient times, a long river, bank with shallow, rapidly flowing cold water and the absence of any shade-giving trees are the three principal health-giving factors relied on. Special care has been taken to enable schools to make use of the facilities offered there; 4000 persons can undress at the same time, and free tickets have been granted to schools and workshops, so that on some days last summer 10,000 persons were seen there. The institution has done much to convince the lower classes of the good influence of the natural mode of life. RAIN AND LIGHTNING.

The downpour of rain that sometimes follows a flash of lightning is usually supposed to be due to the coalescence of fine drops on losing their electrical charge, but M. Laine, a Finnish observer, has found reason to adopt a new theory. He concludes that the thunder jars the drops together. Near Vasa, a heavy thunderstorm came up from the east late one afternoon, and, as the sun was unclouded, a brilliant double rainbow appeared in the east for half an hour, arching from horizon to horizon. At each roll of thunder the rainbows seemed to be much shaken, the edges' being displaced and tTie colors blurred. This could not be due to the lightning, and it seemed that the same cause might enlarge the raindrops and disturb the rainbows. COLD AND CANDLES.

One of the scentists attached to the Peary expedition tells us of the effect of the intense cold on a wax candle that he tried to burn. The temperature was 35 degrees below zero, and its effects were felt not only by the members of the expedition, but even by the candle in question. It gave forth no cheery light such 'as might have been expected from it in other circumstances, and when it came to be examined it was found that the flame had all it could do to keep itself warm. The air was so cold that the flame was not powerful enough to melt all the wax of the candle, but was compelled to eat its way down, leaving a skeleton structure of wax in the form of a hollow cylinder. Inside this cylinder the wick burned with a tongue of yellow fire, and here and there the heat was sufficient to perforate the outer covering, and leave holes of odd shapes which "turned the cylinder into a tubft'of lacelilke wax, through the holes in which the light shone with a strange, weird beauty. , DOUGH BREATHES.

"Dough breathes," stated an authority on the subject in a recent paper. This utterance illustrates the gravity of bread-making in unsanitary places; for, as our authority continued, "The dough breathes in and absorbs as it is kneaded. Knead it in a polluted atmosphere and you must have polluted bread. It never lets go of a germ once it breathes in, and baking does not destroy one-half of them." Then, after it is baked, the bread passes through many dirty hands, ■and is often passed over the counter or "handed in" bv a person who has been groomina a horse, or, ever worse, using a pocket-handkerchit'! "It is a good thin* for the baking business that public opinion is becoming thoroughly roused to the necessity of protecting food from dirt."